The secret to Amazon’s success? It’s constantly trying new things

Quora is a fun and interesting tool sometimes. It’s kind of neat to see what sorts of things people might ask (though, admittedly, about 95% of the questions are completely banal), or what they might say in answer to your questions.

As I note in my answer, the better question might not be so much why Barnes & Noble didn’t, but why Amazon did. And that led to me recalling all the other things Amazon did. It seems that the key to Amazon’s success can be summed up in the title of a song from a recent Disney movie.

Remember how Amazon began? It was a simple little bookstore site devoted to the proposition of selling paper books, just like your average Waldenbooks, Borders, or Barnes & Noble, but doing it over the Internet.

That’s all Amazon was, and all Amazon did, in the beginning. It was a store where you could buy physical goods over the Internet—like about a zillion other stores back in the day. It wasn’t even the only Internet bookstore! For the longest time, I only ordered books from Books a Million (I had a loyalty club membership and everything), because I had been annoyed at some obnoxious thing or other Amazon had done, so long ago that I can’t even remember what it was now, and had the foolish notion that my “boycott” of Amazon might have some effect. (I eventually learned better.)

But what put Amazon out in front of all the rest of them? Well, just look at everything Amazon is and does now. An expanded merchandise selection beyond (way beyond) books. The Kindle. Kindle Desktop Publishing. Amazon Prime.Amazon Prime Now. Amazon Music. Amazon Streaming Video. The Kindle Owners Lending Library. Kindle Unlimited. The Fire Tablet. The Amazon Echo. Sunday mail delivery. Amazon Dash buttons. And on. And on. Every single one of those things was, at one time, something completely new Amazon was trying, and had its share of skeptics. And yet, all of those things have stuck around, so far.

And that’s the secret, really. Since it started acquiring the cash flow to end all cash flows. Amazon has never rested on its laurels. Remember all the years people gloomily wondered whether Amazon would ever turn a profit? That’s because there were no laurels to be had—Amazon was immediately plowing all its income back into building out its infrastructure, and, more importantly, trying more and more new things.

Not all of those new things were successful. Some of them not only failed, but failed badly.The Fire Phone comes most immediately to mind. That phone didn’t just fail, it crashed and burned, and you could see the mushroom cloud from over the horizon.

But did Amazon let that stop it? No. It just shrugged, brushed the dust off, told itself, “Lesson learned,” and applied those lessons as it continued to try yet other new things. It’s not just trying anything, it’s trying everything.

Of course, the underlying reason Amazon is so confident in trying new things is that it has deep-enough pockets that it doesn’t have to worry about the occasional idea that turns out to be a stinker. It’s diversified and wealthy, so it has ample money to burn on trying out crazy new ideas. The ones that work will work well enough that the occasional bad investment can be easily written off with no need to feel bad. If you don’t try any new things, you don’t find new things that will make you even more money.

And that’s one of the areas where Barnes & Noble failed. Not only did it never try a “Kindle Unlimited” style ebook subscription program, it never had the wherewithal even to consider one, because its Nook self-publishing program was nowhere near as extensive or successful as Amazon’s. It’s never had the critical mass of self-publishing writers sufficient to make up for the fact that no big publishers are willing to sign on.

Since clawing its way to the top bookstore chain spot decades ago, B&N has never tried to innovate. Its only attempts at new things have come after Amazon has shown it the way is safe with its own products: An e-ink reader.A $50 tablet. It only pokes its nose into spaces where Amazon has already proved the way is safe—but by the time it does, Amazon has already solidified its own hold on that market. Being that timid is simply not the way to win. (And for that matter, I haven’t seen Books a Million trying any new initiatives lately either.)

Amazon doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. It’s constantly looking into new programs, including seemingly fanciful ones (like drone package delivery services) that competitors scoff at now. But does Amazon know something they don’t? It might very well. It might just know that continuing to try new things, even outlandish things, is the only way to succeed. You can’t win if you don’t play the game. Even if you fail, you probably learned something in the doing that will help you succeed if you try something else similar down the road. That’s how Amazon has rolled, the last few years—and rolled right over its competitors.

I’m really looking forward to finding out just what new innovations Amazon comes up with in the next twenty years or so.

Like this:

Published by Chris Meadows

TeleRead Editor and Senior Writer Chris Meadows has been writing for TeleRead--except for a brief interruption--since 2006. Son of two librarians, he has worked on a third-party help line for Best Buy and holds degrees in computer science and communications. He clearly personifies TeleRead's motto: "For geeks who love books--and book-lovers who love gadgets." Chris lives in Indianapolis and is active in the gamer community.
View all posts by Chris Meadows

B&N has suffered of a lot of mismanagement, but they did tried with ebooks after the first Kindle success. Their first e-readers where different, and I liked them better than others, their first Nook, with the LCD mini-screen and hackable with some useful applications was interesting, and I think the Nook Simple Touch was really ergonomic, with the page turn buttons on both sides, the posibility to personalize the screensaver with a folder with your own pictures (although maybe Sony was first with that, I can’t remember) and then a rooteable Android software (OK, the rooteable part was not intended, but it worked). The stock software wasn’t much bad either, I like programs respecting publisher formats, and it had glitches, of course, but it was better than others I have tried.
They were the first to add light to an ereader also, it wasn’t as good as the next generation, but it was much better than Sony attempt.
So yes, the failed big (and I don’t forgive them the Fictionwise fiasco), but they weren’t that bad.

Keep in mind something else about Amazon. It treated badly those who helped it during its early years.

1. The large book wholesaler, Ingram, and its POD arm, Lightning Source, gave it generous payment terms. Now it does its best to not do business with them.

2. When I lived in NE Seattle, one of my neighbors was holding a moving sale. I asked her why she was moving. She explained that she’d been one of Amazon’s earliest workers, working for little and giving up her Christmas holidays to work long hours to fulfill orders. What did Jeff Bezos do just before Amazon went public? He fired a couple of hundred of those loyal early employees, including her, so he didn’t have to give them stock options. That’s why he is by some counts the richest man in the world. He made it on the backs of people like her. Embittered, she was moving to California to get away from Amazon.

By all that is fair and just, this link should take you not just to Amazon but the Jeff Bezos’s personal page. It is just as fitting a description as relentless.com

I like your summing-up of Amazon success, I always believing in trying out every thing that’s possible, or I try to make it possible, and even if what I did, and it didn’t work, I got some enjoyment, and learned something which I wrote a book about, which is on Amazon, and blog about. I’m now in the process of rewriting the book anyone interested the book is Mind Process and Formulas